Amazon earnings add to Wall Street angst
The online retailer's September quarter results and fourth-quarter outlook fail to live up to Wall Street expectations.
Amazon.com's third quarter fell short of expectations, and the company's outlook also was light.
For the third quarter, which ended September 30, Amazon reported earnings of $63 million, or 14 cents a share, down from $231 million, or 51 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue in the third quarter surged 44 percent, to $10.88 billion.
However, Wall Street was expecting earnings of 24 cents a share on revenue of $10.95 billion. Analysts were expecting a margin hit, as Amazon invests in its infrastructure and rolls out low-price Kindles.
As for the fourth-quarter outlook, Amazon projected revenue between $16.45 billion and $18.65 billion. Wall Street was looking for revenue of $18.15 billion. Amazon projected an operating loss of $200 million to a profit of $250 million. Wall Street was looking for a profit of $487 million.
Coming off the quarterly disappointments from Netflix and Apple, investors were in no mood for Amazon's miss. Shares were whacked after-hours.
This story was first published at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Amazon's third quarter misses mark; Outlook sluggish."